Soldier Boyz

Another Michael Dudikoff movie that I had never heard about, and thus of course never seen. But as I had the opportunity to sit through a heap of old 1980s and 1990s movies, I had the opportunity to watch "Soldier Boyz". And of course I opted to do so, on account of it being a movie that I was not already familiar with, nor actually seen. So in a way, I suppose writer Darryl Quarles and director Louis Morneau had every opportunity to entertain me.

Writer Darryl Quarles put together an insanely laughable plot here. I mean, a group of prisoners venturing to Vietnam to rescue some girl, and if they succeed there are full presidential pardons awaiting them, some of the worst inmates in the prison, yeah, that was a very good idea. And you take a bunch of gang members, killers and other such filth of society, pull them from prison and expect them to function as a military unit, and guess what, they just magically knew how to function like a highly trained military squad, who knew? I just guess realism was a concept that Darryl Quarles was not familiar with. There is no limit to the headshaking going on when you sit down to watch this.

Now, I am sure that writer Darryl Quarles was fully intent on being serious when he wrote the script for this movie, and I am sure that director Louis Morneau meant for this to be taken as a serious war movie. But you can't help but chuckle at the goofy storyline and how far out there it really was.

And it just made zero sense that the local Vietnamese people would communicate in English during the shootout scene.

Aside from leading actor Michael Dudikoff, the only familiar face on the cast list was Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, whom they had portraying a Vietnamese person in the movie.

Despite the questionable plot, then the movie was actually entertaining enough. There was a good amount of action and shooting which made the movie all the more enjoyable to sit through.

"Soldier Boyz" is definitely not without its flaws, not to mention a silly title. But the movie was actually oddly entertaining for the cheesy, campy rubbish that it was.

My rating of director Louis Morneau's 1995 movie "Soldier Boyz" lands on a four out of ten stars.

This movie was quite OK, not bad or good. It's about a billionaires daughter (Nicole Hansen) that are kidnapped in Vietnam by a terrorist grup led by Vinh Moc (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa). A former major (Michael Dudikoff) are asked to being sent down there to find her, he does it if he are allowed to bring six prisoners and that they will be free after the operation (if they survive). One thing that is bad is that they choice following prisoners. A nazi-guy (Channon Roe), a female murderer (Jacqueline Obradors), a black mass murderer called the Monster (Cedrik Terrell), an innocent murderer that can fight (David Barry Gray), and one black man and one latino that wants to kill each other (Tyrin Turner and Demetrius Navarro). The movie makers choosed this because making the movie characters so tough as possible. But no one in the world would choose murderers and revenging people and put them together for a rescue mission and then release them if they survived.

And why do they have to have a women in the team. I'm not against women in movies or in tougher character roles, but I don't think you need a women in every war-movie just because you wants to show that you are not against women in war.

But the movie works because it has action. But that this kind of movie tries to put in some message about women being discriminated and humiliated by man is awful. If a movie can't handle the basic story and get some descent actors then no one cares about the message.

But as an action-flick its OK.

What we have here is yet another version of the formula that became popular with the making of "The Dirty Dozen" (though we have fewer soldiers in this movie, probably due to the low budget.) It could have been an entertaining version of the formula, but "Solider Boyz" utterly fails. To begin with, the setup is ludicrous - would a millionaire whose daughter was kidnapped allow the lead soldier he hires to have a bunch of TEENAGERS who have almost no combat experience? (Why not hire professional mercenaries?) And there are other silly things like the fact the teenagers only get about ONE DAY of training! Plus, there are plenty of clichés, such as when one solider steps on a land mine and needs to be saved from it exploding.

The movie might have been made tolerable with some good action sequences, but the action sequences in this movie are horrible. All they are basically is shots of people firing guns towards the camera, over and over. It looks lazy and cheap, and so is much of the rest of the movie. The jungle locations look skimpy, and some scenes seem to be hastily shot, like when the millionaire's daughter is captured. As you can see, "Soldier Boyz" has problems going far beyond bad spelling.

I doubt the concept of this movie would work in real life. A group of delinquents are recruited by Michael Dudikoff for a dangerous mission in Vietnam, forming a dirty half dozen (as the film was advertised). Despite the unbelievable go-point, the movie's pretty good, and does a good job creating the feeling of a hostile and deadly war area with dire consequences for the people who go there. One interesting element of this movie was watching Dudikoff acting with a cast of younger actors, and knowing his real-life passion for spending time with children, it makes one feel that he really believes in these kids despite the screw-ups they had made in their lives. The action is violent and bloody, but is needed and works in effectively creating a believable war zone. I like the fact the teens aren't all pretty-faced kids off the streets of Beverly Hills, as would probably be the case if it was made today. Fans of movies like THE DIRTY DOZEN and UNCOMMON VALOR should give this one a look.

It seems that most of the viewers have the same idea about this one...pretty good, but there were some major problems. I'll admit, anytime this one comes on cable, I'm usually watching it, but the technical gaffs, and continuity errors are still annoying. The worst part of the movie? When the lead actress playing the kidnapped "Gabrielle" (GAB-REE-EL), mispronounces her own character's name, saying "Gabriel" (GAA-BREE-EL). Not surprising we haven't seen this actress in much else. But if you're bored one night, catch this one on cable. It's somewhat exciting.